Friday, 23 August 2013
Today Let's Talk about Surface Brightness
Give the definition of surface brightness.
The surface brightness of an extended object, for example a galaxy, is the radiative flux per square arcseconds on the sky.
-------
---------------------------- | D |
d --------
D= area on the sky in [square arcseconds]
d= distance of the galaxy we're considering [parsecs]
This galaxy subtends an angle alpha on the sky:
α=Dd
If I measure the luminosity L of all the stars into the area D I've the TOTAL flux:
F=L4⋅π⋅(d)2
So I can define the surface brightness with this formula ( very important):
I=F(α)2=F(Dd)2=L(4π⋅(d)2)⋅(Dd)2=L4⋅π⋅(D)2
I[magarcseconds2]
References:
1)http://asd.gsfc.nasa.gov/David.Davis//courses/phys315/week6/week6.pdf
2)http://www.astro.spbu.ru/staff/resh/Lectures/lec1.pdf
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